A Grande Transformação, de Karl Polaniy

 

What a wonderful book, as relevant, or possibly even more relevant, now than when it was written. It completely demolishes the neo-liberal dogma of the supposed advantages and “naturalness” of unregulated free markets. It explains intelligently, clearly and common-sensically how economic policy is a choice, a political choice.

And that choice should respect human rights, namely the right to the pursuit of happiness; so economy policy should be directed to serve people’s interests and not the other way around.

This should be a mandatory reading for anyone interested in economics, politics and sociology. It’s always amazing and frustrating how we haven’t learnt anything from History.

Ensaios, de George Orwell

 

I love to read George Orwell's writings. He is the epitome of what a Leftist should be - caring about your fellow humans, and keeping a perfect balance about the individual and the common good. 

Intelligent, accurate, and up to the point, he always keeps his common sense and critical reasoning, as we all should do. 

The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer

 I had this book on my shelf for over 15 years; always put it off reading thinking it might be too difficult. But I was wrong - the translation into modern English is very easily readable, and I expect it reasonably keeps the original tone, at least the rhyming and the spirit. 

It's a wonderful book, witty and entertaining, and extremely informative regarding the life, humour and moeurs of the Middle Ages. It's not as good as the fabulous Decameron, but it's close. 

I'm glad I read the beautifully illustrated book from Folio, the medieval art is just stunning.

Les Années, de Annie Ernaux

 

What a wonderful book, I'm so happy I got to know Annie Ernaux thanks to Saleem Haddad (another great writer, btw). It is a wonderful history of he 20th century, told by a personal memoir by a keen observer. I felt so totally identified with her thoughts and memories from the times I lived through. 

Monter en ville, rêver, se faire jouir et attendre, résumé possible d'une adolescence en province.

Pourtant, ils n'auraient jamais vivre là. [...] Ils désiraient qu'il reste toujours dans le monde des pays sans progrès pour les transporter ainsi en arrière.

Sauver quelque chose du temps où l'on ne sera plus jamais. 

Yes, all our lives' experiences will fade away. But that's exactly why testimonies like this are so important. 

A short note about animals and humans

Recently, reading the book We Are All Completely beside ourselves, by Karen Joy Fowler, I was once more reminded of the question of animal treatment by humans. I always felt somewhat uncomfortable about the notion of animal rights; rights are a human creation and they are applied and thought of in human terms, and I never thought anthropomorphizing other animals is the right way to go. I was never against eating animals; animals do it all the time and we are also animals, even if more successful in the evolutionary scale. 

But I do care about human ethics, which implies I care about cruelty. Inflicting unnecessary suffering is wrong and demeaning to us humans. And we do that far too much. Lots of animal experimentation is utterly unnecessary – like for cosmetics and such. And the food industry is just appalling, it makes the blood boil every time I read about factory farms, slaughterhouses and such, especially because they’re so unneeded – humans could do perfectly with much less meat, and a lot of it just goes to waste. Every time I think about it, I consider the ethical thing to do would be to become vegetarian, but I never did. Partly out of self-indulgence (I like meat), partly because I know my attitude wouldn’t make much of a difference, partly because I don’t think eating animals it’s wrong in itself, it’s the suffering inflicted by the food industry I object. 

I tend nevertheless to eat much less meat than I used to, and to choose whenever possible products I think were more humanely treated. I know that’s probably not too coherent and maybe insufficient. 

And of course I’m opposed to hunting for pleasure, bullfights, cock fights and other such barbarities. Inflicting suffering is wrong, and we know other animals suffer just like us. 

Am I a snob?

 

Am I a snob? The short answer is yes. But since I am a snob, I will take advantage of my snobbish status and digress a little about my snobbishness, as snobs are supposed – or expected - to do.

Virginia Woolf’s definition in her excellent essay Am I a snob? Is:

The essence of snobbery is that you want to impress other people. The snob is a flutter-brained, hare-brained creature so little satisfied with his or her own standing that in order to consolidate it he or she is always flourishing a title or an honour in other people's faces so that they may believe, and help him to believe what he does not really believe - that he or she is somehow a person of importance.

As for myself, my snobbish has been mostly an intellectual snobbishness, not a social one – but I guess it could be considered also social, in the way everything we do is intended to affect our relation to others, so it has a social meaning, even if not related to class. Maybe it started because my parents were so intellectually brilliant so I, as their child, felt I had to prove my own intelligence to keep up to their standards. Also, being a skinny kid awful at sports and feeling awkward in an ugly and unattractive body, my intelligence and wit were my biggest assets. Anyway, my snobbishness helped me to cope.

One of the ways my snobbishness is shown is in my literary snobbishness. I’ve always been a voracious reader, and of course I always loved to appreciate the right books, the classics and the cool contemporary books, and fortunately I have been able to get a great pleasure from reading them. But I also enjoyed reading cheap comics and corny books like my grandmother’s favorite The Redbreast of the Mill. They became a kind of guilty pleasures, like enjoying the musical Cats or a few soaps on television. But then, aren’t intelligent people allowed these harmless dalliances in popular culture? One feels comforted to read the Bruce Chatwin’s account when he visited Nadezhda Mandeltsam and brought some thrillers, and he said something like “I hope they’re not literary works, I want real trash!”

I’m writing about this on account of a recent clash with my literary snobbishness. A few years ago, a dear friend gave me a book by Maria Teresa Horta, a fictionalized biography of the Marquesa de Alorna, an 18^th century Portuguese poetess. Well, Maria Teresa Horta is someone I’ve always laughed off as the kind of feminist that would burn bras in the 60s, and whose writing was, as a friend of mine described it, “very feminine, very open-legged”.  So I shelved the book, and didn’t think about it until recently, bored and having nothing better to read, I took it from the shelf and started reading it.

And then, I’m actually enjoying it! Yes, the writing is often corny, using the same images again and again, too many descriptions of dresses and jewelry. But the subject is quite interesting, and the book seems reasonably well researched. So I’m enjoying reading a Maria Teresa Horta book; how is that for a snob?

Rimini, di Pier Vittorio Tondelli

I read Pier Vittorio Tondelli's Separate Chambers many years ago, and loved it; later I read Altri Libertini and Pao Pao in French translation, also very good. So now, that I can read Italian more or less fluently, I bought Rimini in Milan.

It's a very good book, it reminded me somehow of a Robert Altman movie (maybe that's why the author said it was supposed to be like Nashville?), a turn pager, about the touristic boom in the 80s in the Italian Riviera. Reading it it really brought me back to the 80s.